


the rogue tide, the ocean waves, and the shore they call home

by nhixxie



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-21
Updated: 2014-06-21
Packaged: 2018-02-05 15:42:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1823671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nhixxie/pseuds/nhixxie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Well,” She smiles, “Welcome home, cap.”</p><p>She leaves, and the silence doubles in its intensity, until it’s the only sound that rings in Steve’s ears. Home has long been lost, he thinks. No amount of sound can fill a house that does not exist.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>One day, Bucky shows up at his door.</p><p>The sound was deafening.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the rogue tide, the ocean waves, and the shore they call home

**Author's Note:**

> To Coco and Kalii, who is of greatest help in the process of writing this piece.  
> To Bucky and Steve, the rogue tide and the ocean waves.

_ 1 _

 

Natasha looks around as she pulls the keys from the door knob.

“Well, here you go.”

Steve drops his luggage onto the floor—one measly duffel bag.

“It’s really—” he pauses, searching for the most appropriate word, “—empty.”

“Gives you something to do in your down time.” Natasha says as she bounces herself onto the couch as if testing for springiness, but Steve knows she’s patting around for concealed devices. He appreciates the concern, but the couch is the only thing in the apartment that seems to work. He’d like it intact, at the least.

“I don’t like going to Ikea.” Steve scrunches his nose, slipping out of his leather jacket.

“Got beef with the Swedish?” Natasha asks, to which Steve chuckles.

“One time I got lost in the furniture pick up area.”

Natasha laughs. “Good enough reason.”

After one last sweep over, Natasha throws her jacket on and gives Steve a pat on the shoulder.

“Well,” She smiles, “Welcome home, cap.”

She leaves, and the silence doubles in its intensity, until it’s the only sound that rings hollowly in Steve’s ears. Home has long been lost, he thinks. No amount of sound can fill a house that does not exist.

 

 

 

One day, Bucky shows up at his door.

The sound was deafening.

 

 

 

 

_ 2 _

 

The radio is playing Frank Sinatra.

“Buck, don’t burn it.”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “I won’t.”

“That’s what you said the last time.”

“Well boo hoo, I burned the ham last Christmas, I’m such a bad person.”

Steve makes a face. “You’re such a baby.”

Bucky turns to him, waving a spatula. “You’re the one sitting on the dining table.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Steve says, letting his feet swing back and forth. He looks over his shoulder again, where their small tree stands proud and loud, glittering ornaments and a string of small, bright bulbs hanging from its body.

“Can you believe we actually afforded lights this time?”

“Carpe diem, right?” Bucky smirks, and Steve gawks.

“Where’d you hear that from?”

“Read it.” Bucky says, “From one of your books.”

Steve feels a smile grow on his lips, but tries to stamp it down. “You’ve been reading again?”

“A little.” Bucky says, placing the spatula down and leaning against the fridge, “Waiting for deployment got me nothing to do, so I figured why not?”

Steve decides today is not the time for pretend and allows himself to grin. “Good. That’s great, I’m happy.”

“I’m actually surprised.” Bucky says teasingly, though Steve knows deep down every word is meant, “You’re not blabbering on about enlisting today.”

Steve grins. “It’s my Christmas gift to you. Or at least half of it.”

Bucky’s eyes widens in alarm. “I thought we were skipping gifts on account of us buying christmas lights instead.”

“Don’t worry. Didn’t spend much on it.” Steve assures him, rummaging inside his jacket pocket. He retrieves a clean, crisply folded piece of paper from within it, and hands it to Bucky.

Bucky takes the edges and gently pulls them apart.

“It’s you and Betsy.” Steve smiles, watching intently as Bucky takes in the entire sketch.

The corner of Bucky’s lips quirks upwards the way they so usually do, except his eyes are undecipherable—still poring over sharp lines and soft shades, but already void of any true focus. He steps forward, the space in between them being emptied out so thoroughly that Bucky’s hips grazes Steve’s knees. Bucky settles in the spot between Steve’s legs, one hand depositing the piece of paper onto the table surface, the other already pursuing a gentle trail up the his neck. Steve allows himself to breathe, and closes his eyes.

Kissing Bucky is exactly how Steve imagines it would be like—brazen and brave and open-mouthed. He touches like it’s a need, fingers following trails up Steve’s face, and traversing the unknown territories of Steve’s back. Their tongues touch, their teeth clack, and it’s far from perfect but it’s _Bucky_. Steve grasps at Bucky’s shirt like an anchor, because Bucky’s always been the tide and he can’t help being carried away and he can’t keep up—

“Steve,” Bucky whispers, chuckles, even, “You’re doing fine.”

“Just follow my lead.”

Steve fights hard not to blush, but he’s not one to win fights against his own body.

“Then go slow.”

Bucky grins. And he does.

Steve is just about to push himself off the table to head for the couch, tugging Bucky along with him, when his eyes catch something along its periphery. He yanks Bucky’s arm frantically and yells, “The ham!”

“Shit—!”

Hours later, they sit on the couch, side by side, a blanket shared. A Christmas Carol is playing on the radio. Bucky grins at Steve, who dejectedly spears a burnt piece of meat with a fork. He affectionately cradles Betsy in his arms and scratches her head, as if a mewling kitten could dampen the taste of charred ham.

“Merry Christmas, pal.”

Steve looks up at him and tries to frown, but finds Bucky pouts and Betsy purrs.

He chuckles instead.

“Merry Christmas.”

 

 

 

 

 

_ 3 _

 

Bucky takes the scissors with one hand, and a length of his hair on the other.

He snips.

Steve leans by the door frame, watching as more pieces of slightly damp hair fall onto the spread out newspaper pages by Bucky’s feet.

“You sure you still know how to do this?” he teases lightly as Bucky curses under his breath, blinking away the stray strand of hair that pokes him in the eye.

“‘Course.” Bucky answers nevertheless, grabbing another bunch and giving it a careful snip.

Steve remembers the scarceness of money, the shabbiness of their clothes, the days when they barely had food to place on the table. Bucky sold his strength to labor work the way Steve sold his art to anyone who would buy them. Bucky learning how to cut his hair was born out of need, and if there was one thing Steve knew about Bucky, it was that he always rose to the occasion. He'd cut his own hair when there is barely money to place food into their stomachs. He'd cut Steve’s too, when pushing back his bangs was getting a little too distressing when he’s hunched over a particularly detailed sketch.

“We could have gotten your hair cut somewhere.” Steve says as he moves from the door to stand behind Bucky. “There’s this really nice gent by Parker street who never tells.”

Bucky can’t help but smirk. “How much did you have to pay him to keep his trap shut?”

Steve smiles, brushing strands off the other’s shoulder. “Stories. His dad was in the same infantry as you were.” he says, and Bucky sighs.

“I feel mean now.”

Steve snickers. “Yeah, you really were. The shame.”

Bucky tilts his head to the side in thought. “Maybe I should just shave my head as punishment.”

Steve dives for the scissors. “No need for that.”

“I was joking, Steve, Jesus.” Bucky laughs, picking off the scissors from where it is cradled against Steve’s chest.

Bucky continues to trim on, combing through locks of hair and trapping them between fingers, flattening them into planes he can estimate measurements onto. He cuts and cuts and cuts away, sometimes softly, sometimes with a degree of force that makes Steve blink in wonder. The sound of the blades closing in on each other is sharp and metallic, while the sound of Bucky’s hair being severed in between is crisp and entrancing. Steve doesn’t say anything when he catches barely there whispers with every snip ( _Aleksandr Boniface_ ).

( _Tichaona Emem_ )

( _Illarion Vaska_ )

“Should I give you some privacy?” Steve asks. Bucky shakes his head softly.

( _Yuriy Lev_ )

( _Jonathan Moore_ )

( _Beppe Gioachino_ )

( _Karl Benson_ )

( _Yevgeni Bronislaw_ )

“Can you get the back?” Bucky asks, passing him the pair of scissors.

Steve takes it with no hesitation. “Of course.”

Bucky continues to whisper names under his breath, his voice gentle and solemn like a repentant prayer muttered through the other side of a confessional box. Steve cuts for him, brushes hair off his shoulders for him, just like he would back then when they had less money to spare, and less people on their lists. He runs his fingers through Bucky’s hair, maybe too frequently, maybe too slowly, maybe too longingly.

When Steve finishes, Bucky’s eyes have fluttered close. He raises a hand to rouse him, fingers hovering over the nape of Bucky’s neck like suspended dust illuminated by sunlight. He graces himself two seconds—then forcibly shifts his hand onto the bulk of the his shoulder. Bucky blinks himself awake, hair short, smile gentle.

“That felt nice.” he murmurs.

Steve holds his hands together, tightly together.

 

 

 

 

_ 4 _

 

“What do you want for breakfast?” Steve asks from the kitchen as Bucky stumbles sleepily out of the couch.

Bucky yawns, stretching his arms. “You're asking me?”

Steve closes the cupboards and looks at him. “Yeah, what do you want?”

“Anything.”

“Everything?”

“No, not—just—whatever you like.”

Steve stops, turning to him completely. “Is something wrong?”

Bucky blinks, sleepiness ebbing away too quick for comfort. “You don't have to ask me what I want. You decide.”

Steve takes a few seconds to let the brunt of it all sink in, and when it does,  he feels heaviness in his stomach and a tightness in his chest.

He forces on a smile and reopens the cupboards. “Pancakes then."

Bucky gives him a thumbs up and turns to head towards the living room.

"Buck," Steve says quickly, and Bucky looks back.

"Yeah?"

Steve struggles to find the words.

"You always get to choose."

 

 

 

 

 

_ 5 _

 

Steve starts leaving little things around the house to help Bucky reclaim some of his memories.

Sometimes, they’re physical objects. Thick stacks of drawing paper on table tops (which Bucky used to complain about especially when littered in their beaten down, jointly rented apartment). Vintage soda bottles he bought from random garage sales stocked up inside the cupboards (all of which are reminiscent of Bucky’s favorite drinks as a kid). A tattered, brown-edged photo of Lana Turner pinned onto the fridge (whose movies Bucky always watched in theaters, whether it be with an actual paid ticket, or sneaking into the projection room with Steve in tow).

Most of the time, they’re in the form of subtle words.

Things Steve had said ( _You are the worst model ever_ ), things Bucky had said ( _I’m the **cheapest** model ever you mean_ ), things Steve and Bucky have said together ( _Guess who’s broke today_ ). Verses to a song they’ve painstakingly skipped afternoon ice cream for just to hear ( _Sing, sing, sing, sing everybody start to sing_ ), whistles of little jingles that opened Bucky’s, and by extension, Steve’s, favorite programs ( _Steve put that sketch down, Boxing Fight Club is on—_ )

Steve reminds Bucky of all the words.

Big words from little friends.

( _You’re going to be fine, Steve, you’re— **an audible quiver—** you always get better. This ain’t any different, you hear me?_)

Little words from big books.

( _‘The world is a fine place and worth fighting for.. and I hate very much to leave it.’_ )

( _ **A shaky smile**_ _ **.** Hemingway.._)

Encompassing messages in small chuckles.

( _‘But in the meantime all the life you have or ever will have is today, tonight, tomorrow, today, tonight, tomorrow, over and over again.’_ )

And gentle whispers in the tightest of embraces.

( _And in all those damn days, I’m with you. ‘Till the end of the line._ )

 

 

 

When Bucky walks into the living room, he finds a book sitting on the coffee table.

 _For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway_  

Steve smiles to himself as he watches Bucky thumb through the pages.

 

 

 

 

_ 6 _

 

That night, Bucky opens the door to Steve’s room, gathers the edges of his blanket and sinks beneath it.

Steve shifts to his side, shins bumping against cold toes.

“Couch getting a bit too much for your old back?”

Bucky steals the pillow from underneath Steve’s head. “‘Scuse you, gramps.”

“Why’d you never tell me we only had one bed when we were living together?” Bucky complains under his breath, eyes closed, “Here I was, respecting your privacy and shit, when there ain’t none to begin with.”

“ _Hey, Bucky, sleep with me, on account of seventy years ago we used to share a bed together_. How would that sound to a recovering amnesiac?” Steve mumbles. He catches Bucky’s metal hand which reflexively reaches out to rub his eyes. Bucky mutters a quick thanks and switches it for his real one.

“Can I tell you something?” Bucky asks, and Steve nods.

“Sometimes, I still feel scared.” he says, voice rough with something more bitter than sleep, “What if lose my mind again. What if they scrubbed me up so clean I’m just pretending I’m remembering things.”

Bucky looks at Steve.

“What if you’re not really here?”

Steve gazes back, the sound of his breathing soothingly rhythmic.

“When I found you strapped on that table, and your mind wasn’t clear,” he asks softly, “How’d you realize I was real?”

Bucky's eyes softens.

“You felt real.”

Steve fills the open air with the following words.

“Then touch me.”

He gently searches for Bucky’s hand under the blanket, presses his fingers against the first one he finds, and brings it to the surface. Metal peeks from the hem, and immediately Bucky retracts.

“I’m cold there.”

Steve unflinchingly holds him in place. “I don’t care.”

He moves Bucky's fingers and presses them against his jaw, guiding them up the sharp line and lets him set his palm against the curve of the bone. There is hesitance, and Steve could feel it in the stark absence of Bucky's fingertips against his skin, and the way the joints of Bucky's fingers resists any proclivity to move. Bucky looks at Steve like there's a thousand things that should be said, but finds himself unequipped with the proper words

Finally, Bucky speaks. “I hurt you so bad before.”  he says and softens with his touch, thumb tracing circles against the corners of Steve’s mouth. “And I can still hurt you easily.” he lets his fingers slide down against the nape of Steve’s neck, thumb sitting on Steve’s throat. “You trust me that much?”

Steve’s eyes grows heavy, sleep a beckoning force.

“It’s not trust, Buck.” he murmurs.

The press of Bucky’s lips on his jerkily wrenches him away from slumber, and he loses a couple of breaths as he lets his fingers wander along the curve of Bucky’s jaw and presses his palm against Bucky’s skin. Bucky kisses like Bucky kisses: brave, brazen, open-mouthed, and Steve feels as if he’s found a home long lost.

Bucky guides him onto his back, but Steve stops him, holding onto his wrist gently.

“I’m here. I’m real.”

Bucky breathes in and out, the small quiver of his lip betraying the damage.

“I need to know if I am.”

Steve feels something crumble in the pith of his chest as he wordlessly slips off his shirt and pulls the neck of Bucky’s down to kiss him again.

(Home may have been found, but it’s empty inside.)

  


 

 

_ 7 _

 

“Drinking again?”

Bucky sets his glass back onto the table, right next to a half empty bottle of Old Fitzgerald. He flips a page of his book, the cover old and worn out. “It ain’t everyday I’m at St. George with all these rich folks.”

“They do have good rooms.” Steve says as he looks around, still in his military green, the gleam of his pins duller under the yellow light of Bucky’s lamp.

“Perks of being a part Captain America’s elite squad.” Bucky smirks slightly from where he’s seated by the night stand.

“Wish I was here instead.” Steve mutters, kicking his shoes off.

Bucky laughs. “Right. Because the presidential suite’s so fuckin’ bad.”

“You know that ain’t me, Buck.” Steve says with a sigh, dumping himself onto the side of the bed nearest Bucky. He looks at him. “What are you thinking?”

Bucky doesn’t look up from his book. “Nothing.”

“Just nothing?” Steve asks silently, as gently as he could.

“I don’t know. I’m thinking I’m tired.” Bucky mutters, closing his book shut.

Steve closes his mouth and blinks down onto his hands. “Should I..?”

Bucky shakes his head. “Nah. Stay.” he smiles softly, pushing himself off his chair and settling on the spot next to Steve. “The entire country’s been hogging Steve Rogers to themselves. I’m getting my damn turn.”

Steve laughs and kisses Bucky. “Thank god you’re alive, Buck.” he whispers.

“Tell me how you’re feeling.”

There is hesitance.

“I feel—” Bucky’s eyes are lost in something Steve can’t decipher, “Nothing. And it fuckin’ scares me.”

Steve reaches out for Bucky’s hand, fingers lacing intimately against his until they lock together in place. “I’m listening.”

It takes Bucky a while, but when he does speak, it is with a voice that is barely held together. “The first time I killed a man, I couldn’t. Couldn’t pull the trigger, couldn’t look at his face. I was so fucking scared of seeing somebody’s face just—empty out when they die. I told him to turn around and face the clearing. He almost killed me, you know, if I was just a half-second slower. Shot him right in the head, I didn’t mean to, but my hands were shaking so bad. Five seconds after, I puked my guts out.”

“That relieved me.” he mutters, “It’s a fuckin’ lie, but the fact that my stomach couldn’t bear killing a man gave me hope that maybe I’m still a good person.”

“You are.”

Bucky laughs a bitter laugh. “War eats people up and spits them out mangled.”

“At first I tell myself it’s to defend myself. And then I tell myself it’s to defend my comrades. And then I tell myself it’s to defend fuckin’ America. I kill, and kill, and kill until the nausea disappears and I could shatter a man’s skull without even blinking. I couldn’t—I couldn’t,” Bucky inhales sharply, shaking his head, “I couldn’t feel anything at all.”

“I’ve killed so many people, Steve,” he says, pushing against the quiver beneath his voice, “I’ve fired my gun onto lines and lines of men whose only difference from my own was the symbol stitched on their clothes. People died through the bullets of my gun, people died under my watch, and I tell myself I’m saving more souls than I’m damning to hell and who I damn to hell deserve every second of it—but _fuckin’ hell_ ,” Bucky laughs bitterly, pressing the back of his hand against his eyes, “They’re just men. Men like me. Beggin’ for their mothers and fathers and sisters and lovers.”

Bucky blinks away the glassiness in his eyes. “And I killed them all.”

“I want to forget.” He reaches out for the glass of whiskey on his table, ““If I can just _fuckin’ forget—_ ” Steve holds onto his wrist before Bucky’s fingers could ever touch the glass.

Steve looks at him with all the sincerity in the world, speaks in tones of softness Bucky never knew existed. “Let me help you then.”

Steve holds Bucky by the nape of his neck and brings him close, kissing him deeply, slowly, tentatively. He could almost feel Bucky’s eyes flutter close, lashes softly sweeping downwards as Bucky succumbs solely to sensation. He feels Bucky’s reciprocation in the form of mouth, tongue, and heavy breaths—Bucky’s hands chasing Steve’s as they map territories on his body. Steve stops momentarily, his forehead touching Bucky’s as he holds his face with warm fingers. “Think about me.” he mutters, “Just me, Buck.”

They say when you’re in love, the thought of that person consumes you until they fill you to your brim, or break you at the seams.

Bucky, with his eyes closed and breathes passing through parted lips, nods desperately as he straddles Steve’s hips with his knees. He unbuttons his shirt, Steve doing the same with his jacket and shirt which he tosses onto the floor. Steve's hand rests against Bucky's chest, gently pushing as he guides him on his back.

This is their first time with Steve's new body and he can't help but hover for a few moments, taking in the spread of Bucky’s body against the interesting pattern of the sheets, just as he knows Bucky's eyes are following the new lines rippling along his chest. "You look beautiful, Buck." He gently says, nothing but softly dispensed adoration, and Bucky softens I'm his arms, cheeks red like a blushing bride.

"You too." he gently answers, before he whispers with much urgency, “Now Steve, please,” He pulls him down by the dog tags and finds his lips again.

Steve moves against Bucky’s body until he has fully encompassed it with his, elbows propped against either side of Bucky’s head like a cradle. He rolls his hips downwards, polyester against polyester, allowing some semblance of friction between them. "Fuck, Steve, you better—" Bucky mumbles, hips desperately grinding upwards with greater vigor, hands anchored against Steve’s hips in a steadying hold.

Steve kisses Bucky like his mouth could tell the words his tongue can’t deliver; every breath a confession ( _I love you_ ), an exaltation ( _You are the most beautiful_ ), and a penitence ( _I’m sorry for your brokenness_ ). He fumbles with his belt until it releases with a clack, slipping a hand into his pants and gently stroking the length of Bucky’s cock. He revels in the arresting moan Bucky releases from his lips, finding the steady rhythm that makes Bucky gasp shakily in his ear. Steve makes himself aware of the little things that is Bucky—the way his hands spread themselves evenly against the small of Steve’s back—the way his words falter and crumbles into puffs of air when Steve’s fingers linger on the tip of his cock. Bucky arches into his touch, hips bucking into Steve’s fist as spills nothing but his name from his lips ( _Steve, Steve, fuck—_ ). Bucky’s body increasingly tenses against Steve’s, breathes hitching noiselessly within his throat, until he comes completely with a heady whimper that lingers in the air.

They say when you’re in love, the thought of that person consumes you until they fill you to your brim, or break you at the seams. Steve takes Bucky into his arms and kisses his lips, eyes, and cheeks; he patches up his creases and fixes up his stitching. He tries to search within Bucky places where nothing else but thoughts of blonde hair and blue eyes exist--where there is no death, no torture, no war. Steve will do this, and will continue to do this. He will rob Bucky’s mind of the merciless things that keeps him from a night of good sleep. He will fill Bucky of him until there is nowhere for the war to permeate.

Steve hopes; hopes against all hope—that he is enough.

The next morning, they receive their next lead.

Bucky’s slipping on his jacket when Steve comes to him.

“You don’t have to do this.” Steve says.

“I know.” Bucky answers simply, “If it was anyone else, I wouldn’t.”

“But it’s you.” he says, like there’s nothing he’d rather do with what is left with his life. “God knows I’d do anything for you.”

Steve touches Bucky’s face, thumb tracing patterns against his cheek.

“I won’t let anything happen to you, Bucky.”

 

 

 

The next day, they stand along an icy mountain ridge. 

They await for the train.

  


 

 

_ 8 _

 

Bucky ebbs and flows like a rogue tide.

He’d remember good memories—pristine and warm, like the water of a creek lapping at his ankles. He’d remember bad memories—fractured and decimated, the trauma of it all rumbling at the pit of his chest and ferociously looms over the shore like a hungry eagre.

Sometimes Bucky stares at him with restless, traumatized eyes that have witnessed much, fingers clasped into tight fists against his head. Sometimes he is crushed with debilitating anger, helplessly unearthing waves of aggression he wishes upon nothing and no one. Sometimes he cries and cries and cries, inconsolable, incommunicable, muttering Russian under his breath, whispering back names he had long cut off from his person the very same day he cut his hair.

 _It’s me, Buck, it’s Steve_ is the only words that calms the distraught seas. Steve lifts the blindfold from Bucky’s eyes by pressing warm fingers against his face. Dissipates rumbling rage into still waters by bringing Bucky within the encompassment of his arms. When Bucky whispers names of people he had killed, he whispers back names of people he had saved— _Guatier Webster. Gregory Sparrow. Humbert Jody. Steve Rogers._

It’s Steve’s voice that spills into him and brings him back to shore—like a man thrown overboard and finding refuge within the lull of the sea. He sputters water out of his lungs and, through the dampness of his hair and exhaustion of his eyes, sees night skies overhead.

Steve, the ocean waves.

Steve, the lighthouse keeper.

Steve, the sand beneath his back.

 _You don’t have to do this_ , Bucky would exhaustedly say everytime he finds his bearings—and Steve would always reply, unfailingly, _God knows I’d do anything for you._

One day, Steve is looking at him from his side of the couch as they watch Sunset Boulevard in color.

 _I love you_ , he says.

Bucky doesn’t say anything.

The ocean waves still.

 

 

 

 

_ 9 _

  


“I need you to see what’s wrong.” Bucky grumbles.

Tony scrunches his nose. “What you need is a hug.”

“I keep on breaking things.” Bucky whines, flexing his metal fingers out of habit, as he settles into the slightly reclined chair Tony motions him towards. “Can’t you do anything about that?”

“I could probably disconnect some of the nanowires..” Tony muses, as he activates an entire row of soldering tools from a remote monitor, “That’s your equivalent of muscle fibers.”

Bucky winces. “I sound like a damn engine.”

“At least you don’t actually have one carved into your chest.” Tony says, testing the tip of his solder against a scrap piece of metal by the table.

Bucky looks at him apologetically. “Sorry. I sound like an asshole.”

“Don’t be.” Tony waves him off, “I’ve met myself, I’m well versed with the language. Now keep still.”

Tony is disassembling a couple of metal plates from the mechanical arm when Bucky asks silently, “Can I ask you something?”

He looks at Bucky momentarily. “Go for it.”

Bucky tests words in his mind before letting them roll off his tongue, and when he it does, they are soft and shaking. “Ever wondered how much of you is still human?”

Tony’s hands continue to work, displaced alloy parts being deposited onto the counter as orderly as he could. He doesn’t say anything about the stubborn, concentrated gaze Bucky directs onto the ceiling, nor the telltale shift of his jaw beneath his skin.

“More often than you’d think.” he answers.

Tony waits and catches it—a brief look from the corner of Bucky’s eyes, before it returns to its fixated stare. “How’d you deal with it?” he asks, almost a mumble.

“Pepper.” he says with no hesitation, pressing the solder tip into the arm. “I’m sure if you just ask, Rogers will gladly—”

Bucky’s eyes softens. “Shit like that’s too heavy to pass on to others.”

Tony snickers, and Bucky looks at him in mild surprise, “Barnes, you actually think Pepper is my crutch? That she carried me across the fucking river of despair as she sobbed about how sorry she was of me? She’s a fucking bulldozer. Shoved me forward more than she propped me up. We all need some shoving. You need some shoving.”

Bucky frowns. “I’m not gonna give Steve all this fucking emotional baggage.”

“Oh, and what do you think Rogers has on his shoulders, a kiddie-sized Dora the Explorer back pack?” Tony asks, “He’s got seventy years worth of emotional baggage already in tow, don’t kid yourself.”

“Doesn’t mean I have to add onto it.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “I’m pretty sure ninety percent of that is already you.”

When Bucky doesn’t say anything, Tony leans forward. “Barnes.”

Bucky presses his lips together, brows furrowed, his gaze immovable on the ceiling.

“I’m functional not because Pepper fixed me. I'm functional because she was standing right by as I soldiered through my own bullshit, handing me the damn tools when I knew I couldn’t reach for them.”

“Doesn’t matter whether you have a metal arm or a metal chest or a fucking metal ballsack.” Tony says as reboots his solder, “Needing help is the most human a person could ever be.”

There is a moment of silence before Bucky exhales sharply, blinking rapidly. When he looks at Tony grumpily, the glassiness in his eyes is already gone.

“What the fuck is Dora the Explorer?”

Tony snickers and tells J.A.R.V.I.S. to play the theme song.

 

 

 

(When Bucky walks into the door he sheds his jacket onto the floor, finds Steve on the couch leafing through For Whom the Bell Tolls, and kisses him with all the vigor of a lost man finally coming home.

Steve looks at him like there’s about five hundred things he wants to say, but Bucky tells him the one he wants to hear.

“I love you too.” 

Steve smiles and grins and laughs and pulls him down onto the couch, kissing Bucky again and again and again.

The ocean waves pushes back into the shore.)

 

 

 

_10 _

 

“Steve, STEVE IT’S DOING THAT THING—”

“Where, where is it, show me,”

“There! Shit, make it stop!”

Steve chuckles, moving closer for a better look. “Aww.”

Bucky looks at him, scandalized. “What do you mean ‘aww’?!”

“You look adorable! Like a cat after you’ve stressed it out.” Steve says fondly, gently stroking Bucky’s arm, “Remember when you’d spook Betsy out and all the fur on her back would stick up?”

Bucky bats away Steve’s hands, grumbling, “Steve, stop petting me—”

“No, pet him more.” Natasha grins, elbows planted on the counter surface.

The arm whirrs again, followed by alloy plates opening and closing like the gills of a fish. Steve looks too tremendously excited to be sympathetic of Bucky.

“Maybe he needs a bowl of milk.” Natasha snickers.

“Maybe I’ll cut everybody’s hair off while they’re sleeping.” Bucky retorts.

“I think you just need a big hug.” Steve chortles, ruffling Bucky’s hair.

Bucky glares at him with the intensity of a burning sun. “Well, don’t keep me waiting.”

Steve brightens with a grin and hums under his breath, contentedly winding his arms around Bucky’s waist and settling his chin against his shoulder.

“Hey, maybe it’s a sexual thing!” Sam calls from where he’s fixing himself some breakfast, “Like a bionic hard on!”

Natasha leans back, peering through the doorway. “Oh my god, maybe.” She turns to Steve. “We should test this out.”

Sam peers right back, pumping his fist. “For science.”

Bucky lets his head slump against Steve’s.

“Your friends are dumb as hell.”

Steve hums in agreement, burying his nose into the crook of Bucky’s neck.

 

 

 

(Bucky calls Tony— _“My arm won’t stop doing the THING—” “IT’S A BIONIC BONER!”—_ and the man could barely squeeze out the words ‘you’re just recalibrating’ between wheezing roars of laughter. 

Steve watches from behind the counter as Sam and Bucky wrestle for the phone, the sound of voices bouncing back and forth from one wall to the other, and remembers the time when that was all this house ever was. He thinks of the stillness and the silence.

He smiles.

Today, home sounded beautiful.)

 


End file.
